This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Vehicles conventionally have an internal body structure including a sill extending along the base of the vehicle, a header extending along the top of the vehicle, and a plurality of pillars extending between the sill and the header. Impacts from objects or other vehicles that occur at, or near a pillar can impose dynamic forces on the pillar. Such forces may be directly applied to the pillar and/or may be transmitted to the pillar from the sill and/or header, thereby causing deformation of the pillar. The degree and location of such deformation is regulated by various regulatory entities to e,nsure sufficient forces are absorbed during an impact event. Such deformation is typically determined during vehicle testing, such as side-impact testing outlined by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, for example.
Current vehicle pillars such as b-pillars, for example, are constructed with increased hardness of the pillar material and/or inserts that merely increase the stiffness of the pillar. However, increasing the hardness or stiffness of the pillar can lead to ripping or buckling of the pillar material, thereby preventing the pillar from adequately absorbing forces associated with an impact event. Other pillars are constructed using complex heating and cooling methods in an effort to mitigate such ripping and buckling. While such methods improve the performance of the pillar in absorbing applied forces while concurrently reducing the likelihood of ripping or buckling of the pillar material, such methods can be complicated and costly.